[58] See "An Argument for Ireland," p. 161. [59] "An Argument for Ireland," by J. O'Connell, M.P., p. 161. [60] Burke on "Irish Affairs," p. 101. [61] "English in Ireland," vol. i., p. 657. [62] "Commercial Restraints," pp. 125, 126. See "English Commons' Journals," 22, p. 178. In this summary of the laws enacted by the English Parliament in restraint of Irish trade, I have dealt merely with legislation of a permanent character. "When," says Hely Hutchinson, in 1779, "the commercial restraints of Ireland are the subject, a source of occasional and ruinous restrictions ought not to be passed over. Since the year 1740 there have been twenty-four embargoes in Ireland, one of which lasted three years." "Commercial Restraints," pp. 231, 232. The system of embargoes called forth the indignation of Arthur Young, the celebrated English traveller. The prohibition of woollens, etc., was, he says, at least advantageous to similar manufactures in England, but "in respect to embargoes, even this shallow pretence is wanting; a whole kingdom is sacrificed and plundered, not to enrich England, but three or four London contractors." See also Lecky's "Eighteenth Century," iv., p. 442. CHAPTER III. ENGLISH OPPOSITION TO EFFORTS OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT IN FAVOUR OF IRISH TRADE. Mr. Fox, speaking in the British House of Commons on the 17th of May, 1782, as a responsible Minister of the Crown, thus stated the nature and effect of the legislation of the English Parliament with reference to Irish trade: "The power of external legislation had been employed against Ireland as an instrument of oppression, to establish an impolitic monopoly in trade, to enrich one country at the expense of the other."[63] The English Government was, previously to the Revolution of 1782, able to dominate the legislation of the Irish Parliament under the provisions of Poynings' Law. That power was used to induce the Irish Parliament to pass laws prejudicial to the liberties or the commerce of their country, and to prevent the enactment of laws for the protection of Irish liberty, and the development of Irish industrial energies. Thus, when the English Houses of Parliament addressed William III. on the subject of the Irish woollen trade, both Lords and Commons suggested that the King should use his influence to induce the Irish Parliament to restrain that manufacture, without rendering English legislation for the purpose necessary. A few days after these Addresses were presented, the King wrote to Lord Galway, one of the Lords Justices of Ireland, as follows:-- "The chief thing that must be prevented is that the Irish Parliament take no notice of this here, and that you make effectual laws for the linen manufacture, and discourage as far as possible the woollen. It never was of such importance to have a good session of Parliament."[64]